#164 - The Future of Faith: Huston Smith on Comparative Religion, Tibetan Buddhism, Scientism versus Science, the Fairness Revolution, Darwinian Reduction, and Why Religion Matters in the 21st Century

Modernity has forced the human spirit into a tunnel - is the light at the end the way back to Paradise, or an unstoppable train coming to end the human experiment?

Come join my Patreon!

https://patreon.com/c/HemlockPatreon

Original Video Credit (Kenan Institute for Ethics, 2002):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obeI1ea5ox4

Music of Tibet (1967)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Tibet_(album)

Why Religion Matters (2001)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25885.Why_Religion_Matters

Books and People

Summer of the Gods - Edward J. Larson (Scopes Trial)

The Origins of Love and Hate (Unfinished) - Ian D. Suttie, cited by John Bowlby

The Soul of the American University by George M. Marsden

Chapters

(00:00:00) Intro

(00:03:02) Main Talk, Skip Intro

Outline

This talk features Dr. Huston Smith, a distinguished professor of religion and philosophy, discussing themes from his work, particularly relevant to his then-forthcoming book "Why Religion Matters." He posits that modernity, driven by the success of the scientific method, has inadvertently led to "scientism"—a worldview that limits reality to the material and measurable. This scientific worldview, he argues, has shunted the human spirit into a metaphorical "tunnel," characterized by a loss of transcendence, the sense of a greater, qualitative reality that was central to traditional religious outlooks.

Smith identifies higher education, the media, and the law as institutions reinforcing this tunnel by promoting skepticism towards non-scientific truths and marginalizing religious perspectives in public life, creating an environment less hospitable to the human spirit compared to the "enchanted garden" of traditional views.

Despite this confinement, Dr. Smith sees potential "light at the end of the tunnel," pointing to several hopeful trends. These include the "fairness revolution" advancing minority and gender rights, a shift in psychology towards understanding human nature as fundamentally seeking communion and love (challenging Freudian drives), and developments in physics and cognitive science that suggest limitations to the purely materialist worldview and acknowledge realities potentially beyond space-time or current comprehension. He contrasts these positive signs with his concern that biology remains somewhat stuck in a reductive Darwinian framework, often polarizing the discussion unnecessarily. Throughout the lecture and Q&A, Smith emphasizes the enduring importance of the transcendent perspective offered by world religions for a complete understanding of reality and human flourishing.

Keywords

Huston Smith, Religion, Philosophy, Transcendence, Modernity, Scientism, Scientific Worldview, Traditional Worldview, Human Spirit, Tunnel Metaphor, Higher Education, Media Criticism, Law, Native American Church, Peyote, Fairness Revolution, Human Nature, Physics, Cognitive Science, Consciousness, Darwinism, Why Religion Matters, Multi-phonic Chanting.